And I do not view what was done to me as abuse. For it to be abuse it would have to be done for violence sake or a wreckless disregard for my welfare. THat was not the case.
They were using what they taught and what they thought was the best way to raise a child, and it was done for my overall well being. They truly believed by offering corporal punishment they where discouraging bad behavior and nothing they did left any lasting harm.
What was done, and sadly what is done by many others who don't know the actual statistics, was done for good reasons. Much like a white lie to get a child to take their medicine it is viewed as a necessary evil for a greater good.
That said, I see myself as a person of science. And as you said, the OVERWHELMING evidence shows that spanking only teaches kids to use violence to get what they want. Even B. F. Skinner was not a fan of operant conditioning. He felt it better to remove the stimuli that produces the bad behavior. Knowing this, when/if I have children I plan to go out of my way NOT to spank them.
Further, because I know that it is not effective if I did spank any future children of mine it would be abuse. Why would someone hurt a child when you know it won't be effective? Hurting a child for no good reason is abuse and it is completely different from hurting a child for their overall benefit. My parents did not have that information, and were raised in that manner. They have an excuse. I would not have such an excuse because I know better.
Many of the people who continue to spank are like my parents. They simply don't know better. They truly believe that the generations of children raised that way prove spanking to be effective. They see the research attesting otherwise (if they know about it in the first place...many think science actually supports spanking) as HAVING TO BE flawed in some manner because the way they were raised has to be right.
In their minds, there is no way their loving mothers, fathers, and grandparents could possibly be wrong. It is a congative dissonance. Their parents weren't wrong, pyschology has to be wrong. "Freud was wrong also", "physchology isn't a real science anyways", "psychology constantly changes its mind on these things", "their methodology must be wrong", "the bible says not to spare the rod," etc. These are the rationalizations going through their minds and the thing we must educate them on.
We must show that just because Frued was wrong doesn't mean Skinner and Pavlov are wrong, that pyschology really is a real science, that pyschology has been very consistant on this, that the methodology has been very stringent, and that not everyone interprets the bible that way (not to mention that the bible is wrong or inconsistant on many many things), and simply prove to them that its bad for children.
Calling them sick cowards is not going to change their minds. It is going to make them defensive and more insistant on spanking being good.
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